The Hot Streak Read online

  “It’s perfect,” he said, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek, and then looking at oncoming traffic as he signaled to pull out. “Just perfect. We’re going to the driving range.”

  “Oh, you mean like golf?” She had a vague memory of the driving range being a place her dad went from time to time.

  “Well, you said if you’re going to be a manager, you need to play golf.” He weaved between a garbage truck and an SUV into the left lane. “The driving range is the place to start if you want to learn golf. Or if you just have frustrations to get out and you want to whack the hell out of that little ball.”

  Now she did laugh. “Oh, I have frustrations to get out. Work is driving me nuts.”

  “Me, too,” he said.

  “Oh, did the team lose again today?” she asked as they crossed the boulevard onto the river road.

  He gave an exaggerated sigh, which was all the answer that was necessary. “Let’s not talk about the Robins, all right?”

  “All right. What do you want to talk about?”

  He looked blank for a moment. “I don’t want you to think I’m one of those guys who only wants to talk about himself or his job… ”

  She put a hand on his shoulder. “How about this? When you get boring, I’ll tell you.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Because I really could talk about baseball and the Robins and pitching and stuff like that all day.” He punched a button on the dashboard radio and the sound of a sports talk radio station played in the car. He fiddled with the dial a moment, and then said, “Could you find something else?”

  “Sure.” She poked at the buttons, changing it from AM to FM and searching for a station. “What kind of music do you like?”

  “Anything fast,” he said, passing another sports car as the traffic opened up.

  As it was, they didn’t talk about baseball, or Tyler, very much on the drive. And once they reached the driving range, there were things to talk about, like balls and clubs and swings.

  Tyler bought a bucket of balls for ten bucks, then showed her to a kind of stall, facing a large field surrounded by netting. There were small white signs with numbers on them showing the distance. “Okay, so I’m going to say a whole lot, then demonstrate it, but what it comes down to ultimately is… you’re going to whack the hell out of that little ball.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “Right.” He showed her how to hold the club then, his large, warm hands covering hers. He had long fingers, she noticed, as he adjusted her grip. He explained how to set her feet, how to use her hip to turn and drive the ball. Then he motioned her to step back, and he took a few practice swings, then hit the ball with a satisfying thwack.

  He looked up in time to see it bounce to a stop just past the sign painted with the number 200.

  “Is that two hundred feet?” she asked.

  “God, I hope not,” he said, looking a bit deflated. “I’m hoping that’s two hundred yards.”

  Then it was Casey’s turn. She took her place in front of the tee while he put a ball down, then fiddled with her hands. “Um, would you show me that grip again?”

  She blushed as he did it, because she didn’t really need the help; she just wanted to feel his hands again. She hoped it didn’t seem glaringly obvious, though. He was warm as he reached around her. He was so much taller than she was, so he could stand behind her and grip her hands in his, enveloping her in his arms. Once her hands were in place, he stepped back again.

  “All right,” he said. “Let her rip.”

  She drew the club back, picturing all the TV commercials she’d ever seen that showed Tiger Woods hitting a ball, then swung it as hard as she could. The club made a sharp whooshing sound and she ended up with it behind her back, looking out at the grass. “Where did it go?”

  He was chuckling and she looked down and saw the ball was still sitting, unperturbed, on the tee. She started to laugh, too.

  “But your form looked great!” Tyler said. “Don’t change anything. Except the actual hitting the ball part.”

  Casey took another swing. This one connected and she felt the impact all the way up her arms. And the ball flew, up and up, then down to bounce somewhere past the 100-yard sign.

  “How did that feel?” Tyler asked, not even looking at where the ball went.

  “Pretty good.”

  “Hit another one!” He gave her a bright grin as he put down another ball. “Go on!”

  She did. After about ten swings, they switched places and he hit a dozen balls out into the field. Other people were hitting, too, unseen from their vantage point in the stall, and to Casey it looked like the balls were following each other, like frogs jumping into a pond.

  She could hardly believe it when the bucket was empty. “That was really a hundred?”

  “Well, fifty or so each, yeah,” Tyler said, one hand on his shoulder as he windmilled his arm around. “You want to hit some more? You’re going to be sore tomorrow.”

  She couldn’t let a straight line like that go by. She put a hand on his cheek and batted her eyelashes. “Oh, am I?”

  “Um… ” Tyler abandoned the attempt to phrase a witty comeback and instead slid his hands around her waist and put his forehead against hers. “Yeah,” he finally said, voice a bit gravelly. “Yeah, I sure hope so.”

  She tipped her face up for a quick kiss, then glanced around quickly. He did the same, like two teenagers afraid to get caught. “What’s next?” she asked.

  “Well, are you hungry? We could go and get… ”

  She found herself pulling him close by his belt loops. “I am hungry.”

  “Oh… ”

  It seemed she had made herself clear. They returned the bucket and were soon in the car again, Casey running a hand up his thigh as he backed out of the parking space. Truth was, she’d been wondering what sex would be like with Tyler all week. Ever since that chaste goodnight kiss.

  There were plenty of reasons, or so advice columnists might tell her, she suspected, why she should wait. String him along a little more. He’ll respect you more. Prove you’re not a fan. Make sure he’s serious about you and not just getting laid. And on and on.

  But she didn’t want to wait. She was tired of men who respected her and who were nice and kind and loving and who seemed really hopeful and optimistic about “building something together,” but whom she tended to drop after the third or fourth date because they were crummy in bed. Or maybe they were okay, but they didn’t really turn her on. Dating had become a sort of chore, like apartment hunting or car maintenance.

  But Tyler was not a chore date. He wasn’t a friend of a friend, a blind date, or from an online matchmaker. He was something totally out of the blue.

  He drove them to his apartment, a high-rise building not far from the Ritz with an underground parking garage, which was handy, she thought, because it beat circling around her neighborhood looking for a place to put the car. They rode up in a private elevator straight from the garage that Tyler had to put his key in to allow it to reach his floor.

  Then they were inside a quiet, high-ceilinged modern apartment that didn’t really look very lived in. He pulled her into the kitchen. “Something to drink?” He opened the fridge. “Rum and Coke? I know I have both of those. Or sparkling water?”

  She held in a goofy grin. “Sparkling water would be great.”

  He searched around a bit for the glasses. “I only moved in here last month. And the team’s been on the road more than half of that. So I’m still figuring out where everything is. A moving company did all the unpacking. And you know, I barely eat here.”

  He was sweet, she decided. Sweetly nervous, but not in a wimpy way. He brought her the glass of fizzy water and lingered next to her, leaning against the counter, close enough that she could feel the warmth emanating from his skin. She sipped and looked up at him, and he slid an arm around her waist. Not in a hurry, drinking his water. Casey could hear them both b
reathing, hear the slight tinkling sound of the fizz in the glasses. He wasn’t like one of the fake macho guys who put on a Casanova act— and he wasn’t afraid either.

  “I think I’ve had enough water,” she said, setting her glass down on the granite countertop and leaning into him.

  She heard his glass land on the counter as well, then he cradled her face in his hands and pulled her into a kiss. Her tongue tingled as if she were still drinking when it softly touched his.

  “Bedroom?” she whispered softly against his lips.

  “Yeah, I think I can find that,” he answered.

  Everything in the bedroom was gray. Slate gray, steel gray, dove gray, with wide flat windows covering one wall and overlooking the park. It looked like a spread out of a home design catalog.

  The one colorful thing was a bright red pillow in the shape of a bird, sitting in a chair off to one side. Casey went and picked it up. It was covered with signatures in black magic marker and messages like, “Good Luck Tyler” and “Go Hammer.”

  “Oh, uh,” he explained, “my mom’s an elementary school teacher. Every season she sends me something from all the kids in her class. For luck. It doesn’t matter where I’m pitching, she turns them all into fans of whatever team it is.” He put his arms around her from behind. “I haven’t had a losing season yet, so she just keeps doing it.”

  She leaned back into him, pleased by the warm feeling of his lips against her temple. “Are you superstitious about it?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” He worked his way down to her neck, pausing between kisses to speak. “All ballplayers are. You figure, don’t mess with what works.”

  Then his mouth was too busy suckling at the join of her neck and shoulder to say any more, and her own mouth was letting out soft cries of encouragement. Oh damn, that felt good.

  He pulled her down with him onto the bed, him sitting with her in his lap. She was kicking off her shoes then, while his hands reached around her to unzip the jacket of her warm-up suit. When it was open, he slipped his hands under the edge of her shirt, thumb and forefinger circling her waist and caressing back and forth. She tilted her head so she could kiss him, sloppy but heated, and his fingertips slipped up her ribcage to the edge of her breasts, just cupping gently at the swell of flesh.

  “No bra?” he breathed into her ear.

  “Never needed one,” she answered.

  “Excellent.” He let his hands slide further up, until she gasped as his fingers stroked lightly across her nipples. She arched in his lap, wanting more, and her nipples were not the only thing becoming erect.

  He slipped the jacket off her, then eased her T-shirt over her head, leaving her half-naked in his lap. His hands returned to her breasts, circling her nipples and tweaking them gently between his finger and thumb, then rolling the hardened points in the center of his palms. She gasped in pleasure and banked desire. Plenty of guys liked to play with her breasts, but most of them liked to stare at them. Tyler was giving them plenty of attention, the soft moans of his own proving that he was enjoying it as much as she did, but it felt different. Good. It felt good. What it didn’t feel like was that he had won a prize to look at her tits and that he was now memorizing what they looked like for his own personal memory-porn bank.

  “Shift up a little,” he rasped, hooking his thumbs in the waistband of her sweatpants, and she did as he slid them halfway down her thighs easily.

  It wasn’t until his hand brushed over her mound that she realized he’d slid her panties down as well.

  “All right?” he asked, nuzzling her hair.

  “Yeah,” she answered. She would have spread her legs to encourage him, but her own pants trapped her knees together. She felt him petting her fur, three fingers stroking gently over and over, until the middle one started to go further, applying a bit more pressure than the other two. It slipped between her lips, brushing over her clit, and she gasped, clutching at him behind her. He rocked his hand back and forth, murmuring appreciatively about how wet she was.

  She felt like her clit was swollen, like the sopping wetness his touches had brought out had waterlogged it and made it grow to twice its size. Twice as sensitive, too. Now his finger was moving in slow circles, and she moaned, squirming a bit in his lap.

  “How many times do you like to come?” he asked.

  “What?” she said, not sure she’d heard him correctly through her haze of lust.

  “Are you one-and-done, or do you like to have more?”

  She found herself chuckling. “One-and-done? Is that a… a phrase?”

  He nuzzled in her ear as he spoke, as he stroked her. “Well, it is, but it usually refers to guys who are stingy with giving, if you know what I mean. I’m not one of those. If you want to come, just say ‘Tyler, make me come,’ or something like that.”

  “Is that fair, really?” she asked, lifting her hands behind her head to run her fingers through his hair. “I mean, guys can only have one. I don’t want to be… selfish.”

  He laughed. “I can tell already you’re not some Do-Me-Queen. So tell me. You want me to make you come now, here like this, or just… tease you some more?”

  No one had ever asked Casey a question like that in bed before, one that was a real question and a turn-on all at once. She was tempted to say yes, do it, make me come… but it was all a tease for what she really wanted, wasn’t it? “I want to put my arms around you,” she said. “I want to kiss you.” She found herself hesitating, though.

  “Mmm, and?” he asked, hearing that she was not done.

  “And I want to come while you’re inside me.” There, it was said. She knew her cheeks were burning. She wasn’t one for talking dirty. And that was the thing: nothing Tyler had said was particularly raunchy or felt like it was supposed to be. He really wanted to know.

  And she really wanted to answer. And she had. He stroked her a bit longer and then said, “There’s no rush. But I’m game.”

  He stood her up with careful hands on her hips, then slid her pants the rest of the way down so she could step out. He paused to hug her, and Casey shivered delightedly at her naked skin against his clothing. It was a thrilling feeling. But it might be even more thrilling to feel skin against skin. “You’re overdressed,” she said, half in a whisper.

  He chuckled. “Getting there.”

  He sat back down on the bed and leaned over to untie his shoes. Casey clambered behind him and stroked her fingers through his hair while he shucked his jeans. She helped him pull his polo shirt off, and they crawled together toward the center of what seemed like an enormous bed.

  She got her first good look at him naked when she turned around to see him settling on his side next to her. Outside the sun was setting over the park, and his skin seemed to glow in the fading light, in the grayness of the room. She put a tentative hand on his hip, not feeling quite bold enough to just reach out and grab him.

  “Can I… can I put the condom on you?” she asked, breathless and eager.

  “I would love it if you would,” he said, rolling away from her briefly to pull something out of the drawer in the bedside table, then rolling back with the little packet in his fingers.

  “Lie back, then,” she said, biting her lip as she smiled.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He smirked, then dropped his mouth open in a silent “ah” as she stroked him once, twice, before pushing the cool rubber against the head. He felt like steel in her hands, his pulse seeming to beat through her fingertips, as she covered him. His voice was breathless now. “Do you want to be on top?”

  She shook her head, giving him a joking punch on the arm. “Nah. It’s too much work.”

  He laughed, flipping her over with a warm hand on her hip. Those hands, those long fingers. She sighed, parting her legs.

  He settled himself between her knees, nuzzling softly at her breasts and kissing her nipples, then shifting himself toward the head of the bed, until she could feel the length of him rubbing her clit as he rutted against her. She found her h
ands tugging on his buttocks, trying to encourage him to penetrate her, not just rub back and forth on her

  He nodded as if he heard the unspoken plea, shifting down again, his angle changing, and then… “Ohhh.”

  He slid in easily. When was the last time she was this wet? He rocked a bit, side to side, working his way in deeper, then resting a moment before pulling all the way out, slipping his thumb over her clit a few times, and pushing into her again.

  The next thing she knew, he was going at it steadily, his rhythm slow but not stopping, supporting his weight on his left arm while his right thumb slipped down over her clit on every stroke. God, he felt good. Inside her, and touching her, and she felt it wouldn’t be long before she came, especially as close as he’d brought her earlier.

  “Tyler… ” she said, as her arousal leaped up another notch. “Gonna come… ”

  “I know, darling, I know. Go right ahead.”

  And there she was, at the top, like a sudden ray of sunlight seen over the crest of a hill, the moment blinding and beautiful as she fell down the other side with a cry. He moved in and out of her, all through the spasms of her orgasm, and it felt better and better, as if he were massaging her inside. She clutched him suddenly, feeling like a second orgasm might follow quickly on the heels of the first.

  “Harder?” he asked, propping himself back a little to look at her face.

  She nodded, and as he picked up the pace there it was again. “Oh, God… ” She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him deeper, as the sensation blossomed from her middle, tingling and sending sparks all the way to the tips of her toes.

  When she opened her eyes, he was looking at her face, rapt. “You’re so… ”

  “You, now,” she urged, cutting off whatever he had been about to say. “You, now, Tyler.” God, he’d reduced her to short words, sentence fragments.

  But he understood. “Yes, ma’am. Hold on.” He sped up once again, stomach muscles clenching. She ran her hands all over him, feeling how firm his muscles were. Perhaps there were advantages to dating a professional athlete that should have been obvious to her, but which she hadn’t really grasped until now, when she could see his washboard abs as he snapped his hips forward, feel the muscles in his arms.